Honolulu Biennial Symposium – Day 2

The Honolulu Biennial 2019 introduces a two-day Symposium March 9-10, 2019 during the opening week at the Hub at Ward Village. The lineup will feature HB19 artists and curators, moderated by thought leaders of the Pacific and contemporary art world. Symposium topics will include indigenous knowledge, collective practice, the arts in climate communication, cultural colonialism and social justice.

11:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Engaging the Senses Foundation presents a preview performance of The Story of Everything by Kealoha, Hawaiʻi’s Poet Laureate and a MIT Nuclear Physics graduate. The Story of Everything is a creation story of human origin, drawing from sources as diverse as the Big Bang theory, genetics, one ohana, mālama honua and the Kumulipo – the 18th-century Hawaiian creation oli. This epic poem, written by Kealoha, condenses 13.7 billion years into a multimedia show combining science, poetry, storytelling, movement, music, visual art and chanting. Engaging the Senses Foundation is pleased to present, produce and film the one-time-only live performance of The Story of Everything on Friday, March 22, 2019 at 7 p.m. at Hawai’i Theatre Center. The full show features Kealoha along with song and music by Taimane Gardner and the Quadraphonix, oli by Kau‘i Kanaka‘ole, dance by Jamie Nakama, Jory Horn and Jonathan Clarke Sypert and art projections by Solomon Enos.

1:00 - 2:00 p.m. On Sacred Ground – Native Hawaiian Artists on Arts, Justice and the Environment. Artists Bernice Akamine, Kapulani Landgraf, and Maika’i Tubbs hold a conversation about the arts, social justice, and the environment. Moderated by Reuben Roqueñi, director of National Artist Fellowships, Native Arts and Cultures Foundation. This panel will delve into tactics Native Hawaiian artists are taking up to push back on centuries of cultural colonialism, identity, genealogical and cultural reckoning and its contemporary manifestations. Their work prompts civic discourse, revealing the complexities around Native natural resources, sacred sites, sovereignty, and historical injustice. The panel will run counter to theories of conflict based on economic or environmental cost-benefit analysis, which do not fully capture the dynamics of cultural resistance, complicating the relationship between Native Hawaiians and non-Native peoples approach to stewardship and homeland.

2:15-3:15 p.m. #artoo: An Exploration of Gender in Power & Art – Dear Boss Babes Talk Story. A live-recorded podcast talk-story about what it has meant to be a woman in the world of art and activism with HB19 artists Rosanna Raymond and Bernice Akamine alongside Nina Tonga, HB19 Curator, and Tatiana Kalani Young, PhD. University of Hawai’i. Moderated by Dear Boss Babes co-hosts Ashley Lukens & Jasmine Slovak.

This event is free, but RSVP is required. Guests may enter starting 20 minutes prior to the event.RSVP at honoluluboxoffice.com